Colorado hopes to gain a little national recognition in the 2008 presidential nominating process by moving up precinct caucuses to Feb. 5. Realistically, the state’s impact will be minimal at best. Given what we know of the state’s unwieldy caucus system, it will be something short of a miracle if the political parties have results that night.
Still, a Feb. 5 caucus throws Colorado into the growing crowd of states holding primaries or caucuses that day to pick the presidential nominees for the major parties. And that’s better than not participating at all.
The state Democratic central committee voted last weekend to move up the party’s caucuses to the first Tuesday in February. The GOP central committee will weigh in on the subject in about two weeks via mail ballot.
More than 20 states are holding, or planning to hold, their presidential primary or caucuses that day. Colorado has no presidential primary, and statute sets the caucuses for the third Tuesday in March. But given the mad dash to the front of the primary calendar, the legislature passed enabling legislation this year allowing caucuses to be moved up by approval of the state parties.
The leaders of both parties support the move, hoping to give Coloradans a voice in choosing the contenders to succeed President Bush. Democratic Party chair Pat Waak and Republican Party chair Dick Wadhams said that reporting systems will be put in place in hopes of getting all 3,000-plus precincts to report to party headquarters early enough to be included in the national results.
The need to hurry up and weigh in on the presidential contest was made necessary by the rush to be relevant after California, New York and other big states moved up their primaries.
Western states in the past talked of having a coordinated primary on a single date to gain a greater voice in who their parties’ candidates would be and to force candidates to pay attention to issues relevant to the West. But state legislatures could not agree on a unified date, which was unfortunate, given that historically the interior West has had the least amount of impact on the presidential primary process and a coordinated primary could have changed that.
This year, Democrats in several Western states expressed interest in moving closer to the front of the primary calendar, but the Democratic National Committee voted to allow only Nevada to move up its caucuses – to Jan. 19. Nevada’s state Republican Party quickly followed, voting to allow the Republican caucuses to be held on the same date.
Under national party rules, Iowa holds its caucus first, followed by the New Hampshire primary. No other state is allowed to hold a caucus ahead of Iowa, just as no state is allowed to jump in front of New Hampshire with a primary. In 2008, Iowa is scheduled to hold its caucus on Jan. 14, followed by Nevada. New Hampshire is scheduled to hold the first primary on Jan. 22, but because of the competition from the two caucuses, it is now contemplating moving it up.
The downside of the heavily front-loaded calendar is that the candidates will be in such a mad dash that they will be forced to focus their attention on the big states, while smaller states like Colorado will once again get lost in the shuffle.
On the bright side, Wadhams believes that the earlier caucuses, with the presidential nominee at stake, will generate interest in the precinct caucuses and drive more people to attend. We can only hope.
